


Aftermath

by ZizZazZuz



Series: The Human War [1]
Category: Soul Dichromatism, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 20:51:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8593249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZizZazZuz/pseuds/ZizZazZuz
Summary: A soldier recalls his first mission, a response to a monster attack at Frisk's hometown.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Soul Dichromatism](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6883084) by [BlackRazorBill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackRazorBill/pseuds/BlackRazorBill). 



> This work is slated for revision.

I didn’t choose this war. Nobody did. It was thrust on us out of the blue, thirty years ago, when the monster Asgore razed a small town near Mount Ebott and declared war on humanity. That day turned the world on its head. Monsters, magic, souls, all revealed at once. In another world, a more peaceful one, it could have been a landmark date for humanity. Instead, it marked the beginning of one of the most brutal wars in recorded history.

 

I didn’t choose this army. I was a conscript, just like so many others. There aren’t enough young men left, so the government has to keep lowering the age requirement. Thirty years ago, the age requirement was eighteen. Today, it’s sixteen. In other nations it’s even lower. If we were fighting against any other enemy, the draft might cause resentment or backlash against the government, but because of who we’re fighting… I don’t think so. Everyone understands. The monsters have no mercy, and if we lose, humanity will _end_.

 

I didn’t choose this battle. We can’t choose any of our battles, not really. The god-king of the monsters, Asgore, protects his domain with some kind of magic. We can’t send in planes or missiles or bombs. He destroyed our planes and dropped our bombs on our own cities. Ground attacks worked well for a while, but now even those are stalled because of a massive network of deadly traps. As a result, much of our effort is spent cleaning up after monster attacks. Like today’s mission. Coincidentally, my first mission.

 

I sat up and paid closer attention as Sgt. Don ‘Nickel’ Cormier, the leader of my squad, reached the part of the mission that was relevant to us.

 

“Now that Alpha and Bravo have opened the door for us, we get to do the fun part. We’re landing south of the village and sweeping north. We clear the town of monsters, collect any survivors, and extract. Assuming everything goes according to plan --”

 

Nickel paused and grinned as a few of the more experienced members of the squad laughed. “Yeah, yeah, I know. But assuming that, we’ll extract from the town square. Alternatively, there’s an open field to the north we can use. That’s about it, any questions?”

 

“Are we actually expecting any survivors?” I asked. I knew the answer already, but I wanted to be sure. Nickel confirmed my thoughts as he shook his head.

 

“Not really, Creep. We’re getting to this one faster than we normally do, so there’s a higher chance than usual, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”

 

Oh, yeah. My name is Jon McNabb, and I’m sixteen. Everybody calls me Creep though, because-- Well, that’s not important right now.

 

The riders fell silent for the rest of the ride, until the pilot touched down.

 

“Everybody out,” called Nickel. I clambered out of our Little Bird just as the second one landed. Our squad was too large to fit in one helicopter, so we had been assigned two. My heart began pounding. This was it, this was real, if something went wrong here there’d be no second chances.

 

Nickel spoke up once the helicopters lifted off. “Alright! Two, you sweep east, we’ll sweep west, meet up at the town square.”

 

“Oh, I see how it is, you’re making us do all the leg work,” someone in two called good-naturedly. But without hesitation, both groups split and began the short walk to the city.

 

I don’t know what I expected. I’d heard the stories, so I should have been prepared, but I suppose there’s nothing like seeing it first-hand. In the twilight, it looked like how my dad used to describe horror films. The village was in ruins, and was eerily silent. There were no lights anywhere. The closer we got the worse things appeared. Nickel split our section again and we began clearing houses. The first couple houses were little more than rubble, but the third was nearly intact. The front of it, anyway.

 

And there was the first one. Half-buried in the rubble that once was the back half of the house was a boy, maybe fourteen years old. His eyes were still open wide, despite his crushed legs and the spear hole through his left breast. I feel like I should have reacted differently back then, when I first saw him. Maybe I should have felt sick, or been horrified or something. Instead I turned and left the house and called “Clear, next one,” just like I had for the last two houses.

 

Maybe I’d just gotten used to seeing corpses. Nothing new about this one; this was just the first corpse that the monsters had gotten their hands dirty to create.

 

The sudden sound of gunfire to our east made me jump. Nickel noticed my nerves.

 

“Guess that’s confirmation that there’s still a few monsters around. Relax, keep your eyes peeled, and shoot anything moving that isn’t human.”

 

Things proceeded that way for a while. Silence broken only by the sound of Nickel’s radio, our footsteps, and the rhythmic _pop pop pop_ of gunfire to our east. We only ran into monsters in three buildings during our sweep, which we cleared without casualties. I even managed to kill one of them, a strange-looking creature consisting mostly of a giant eye. As Nickel had predicted, we found no survivors, but we did find bodies. Lots and lots of bodies. Most of them were civilian. I can’t help but wonder if they really only see us as animals to be slaughtered and harvested. They don’t seem to make any distinction between our soldiers and our women and children.

 

Nickel, the three other members of our section, and I arrived at the town square before section two did. We cleared the town square for the helicopters and settled in to wait.

 

“Two says they’re almost here. They’re four strong,” Nickel reported suddenly. My heart sank. They had started out with five…

 

“And they’ve got a surprise for us.” Nickel continued. I blinked. A surprise? What… Then it hit me.

 

“No, you said there wouldn’t be any,” I blurted.

 

Nickel shrugged. “I can be wrong.”

 

Before long, section 2 arrived at the town square, and sure enough, they had two survivors with them. One was a teenage girl, and the other was a young boy. Both of them looked like they’d been through hell.

 

And I hated the monsters just a little bit more.

 

At that point we more or less took a break while the two sergeants, Nickel and Boots, discussed where exactly they should call in the heli. Their conversation went something like this:

 

Nickel: “We could just have them set down in the square.”

 

Boots: “Yeah, but we can’t cover the streets from ground level.”

 

Nickel: “How about the hospital then?”

 

Boots: “Sure sounds good.”

 

It was probably more involved than that, but you get the idea. I was tired, I can’t be expected to remember all of it. Long story short, all nine remaining members of my squad, plus the two survivors ended up hanging out on top of a five-story hospital building on the south side of the square that had somehow managed to remain almost entirely intact.

 

“All right, the helicopters ought to be here in ten minutes. We should be more or less in the clear-- Wait.” Nickel frowned and spoke into his radio. “Say again control?”

 

After a moment he looked back at us, and said in an overly calm voice, “Well. I’ve just been informed that Bravo 2 is gone, Bravo 1 is in full retreat, and that we have company coming our direction from the northwest. Post up, it’s gunna be a lovely ten minutes.”

 

This announcement was met with profanity from various squad members as we scrambled to the edge of the roof.

 

Monsters come in two varieties, more or less. The magic kind and the run-up-and-whack-stuff kind. They don’t use guns, so mostly the kind we have to worry about are the magic kind.

 

The magic kind don’t need guns. They spray magic in various lethal forms, including but not limited to waves of fire, sonic blasts, ice spikes, and unusually dense spheres of water. If enough of them attack at once, it doesn’t matter that they’re physically weak. They make up for their frailty with overwhelming firepower.

 

The first monster to appear was the same kind as the one I’d killed on our way in. Three of us opened up on him at the same time, and he exploded into dust before he had a chance to react. Then his buddy, some strange pillar of fire looking thing, started throwing fireballs at us, and the battle was on.

 

We were lucky. They didn’t all rush us at once, they came after us in groups of three or four. Three or for at a time, we could handle. At seven minutes, the first heli landed.

 

“Two and survivors, go!” Nickel yelled over our gunfire. And so they did. That left just five of us on that rooftop.

 

It was about that time the monsters made it into the hospital.

 

“Uhm, so, Control… How about an ETA on that second heli?” Nickel asked into the radio. I giggled nervously and got some cover between me and the door to the staircase. I should have known things were going too smoothly.

 

Two minutes stretched out to what felt like an hour. My squadmates kept firing over the hospital walls. I mowed down the trickle of monsters that began to flow up the stairs. The first one was some strange dog in armor swinging a sword. The next one was also a dog, but it was using a spear. Why are there so many dogs? A question for another time.

 

“Control we need to leave! Where’s-- Never mind!” Nickel shouted. “One, everybody in the chopper! Now!”

 

The helicopter had barely touched down before we were climbing into it.

 

“We’re in, go!” Nickel yelled to the pilot. And go he did. The monsters sprayed the sky with fire, and ice, and various other strange magic projectiles, but our pilot was excellent. I later learned that he’d been flying helicopters for nearly a decade, and while magic splashed off of our helicopter, nothing managed to damage it. To this day, whenever things are going terribly, he’s the man I call on.

  
And there you have it, the story of my first engagement. What? What happened to the survivors? ...To be honest, I don’t know. They were already gone by the time we arrived back at base. I imagine Child Protective Services took them in, but really I never learned what happened to them. In all my time responding to monster attacks, however, those two will always be special. They were the only two I ever rescued.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I'll probably have to go back over this. I've never tried writing in first person, and I've never tried writing an action piece. That said, it could have gone much worse. I wanted to tell the human side of the story in Soul Dichromatism, or at least a little bit of it. I'm not sure I was quite able to capture what I wanted to. I feel like there is a sense of utter hopelessness, but also of unyeilding determination that would come from a species facing annihilation. I wanted to capture the sense of dread, the refusal to be erased, and the sacrifice that I felt must be happening. I'm not sure I succeeded. Maybe I'll try again later, who knows.
> 
> Also if this has sparked any interest in my work at all, feel free to take a look at my main story, The Child in the Machine! http://archiveofourown.org/works/10413675


End file.
